It is drizzling rain, which is the best kind. It’s due to rain most of the week. This is real help for the firefighters.
Jane just spent 3 weeks with her laptop in the shop. HP rebuilt it, sent it back, and now it glitches on some software. An attempt at an AMD driver update brought a black screen (literally) and a host of internet info about people with HP Pavilions of that ilk having exactly this problem with the AMD driver update and no fix for it. So now we have a computer with a problem and the suggested fix (a driver update) gave it a new problem atop the other one, as in, the screen goes black and stays black.
AMD turned out to have a fix, involving apparently not tacking some other piece of software onto the driver update, imagine that! but it isn’t a good fix and doesn’t solve the basic problem with the hardware. At one point she cured the black screen problem, got the regular display back, but after about a minute running, it turned brilliant red, unreadable.
I think she got it back to prior state, but damn! this is maddening.
This is a high-powered machine with a solid state drive and a regular, state of the art stuff, and it’s come back from an overheating issue, and what I suspect was a wonky heatsink, which they replaced—with problems it didn’t have before it was sent in.
It was also sent back wiped, which means endless updating of Windows, and a reinstall of programs and data, which takes forever. A reinstall of the afflicted program gave no joy.
It may go back to HP one more time, because it is not behaving as well as it did before the wonky build nearly killed it, and it is under service policy.
We are not happy with this. They replaced everything but the motherboard and the video, and I think maybe they should have just bitten the bullet and said that overheating had also afflicted those, too.
Better than re-installing Windows and the programs and data item by item is to create a disk image backup at regular intervals, or before you send the machine off for maintenance. Then you can restore everything exactly the way it was, in one shot.
There are many disk imaging programs available. See
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-drive-cloning-software.htm
The link above is to reviews of free disk imaging systems, but I’ve been using a paid one for a number of years with no problems. It’s saved my bacon a couple of times. It’s Image for Windows. (There’s also a version for Linux.)
It will create a disk image while the system is running. Restoring an image has always worked smoothly for me. You can also mount a disk image as a virtual disk drive if you just need to restore a couple of files.
Thanks, GreenWyvern. We use a cloud backup for data that’s a fast restore, but the Windows thing would be helpful.
Yeah, the version for Linux is:
[root]# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=somewhere
on the command line. It makes a binary copy, master boot record, partition table, and all.
And to wipe a disk clean:
[root]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1
Just about as “free” as can be. 😉
Paul, that command looks like it makes a clone of the hard drive. But a good disk imaging program has many advantages over that.
It will:
* create a compressed backup, very much smaller than the original drive.
* omit unused sectors, page file, and hibernation file data.
* create a snapshot of the system at a particular moment in time with integrity, even while the system continues to run and some files are locked by the system.
* split the backup into several files if the target media has a maximum file size.
* verify the integrity of the backup.
* optionally create an encrypted backup.
* do differential backups.
* show backup progress and ETA.
* run unattended at a scheduled time, create a log, and optionally shut the machine down when it finishes.
* allow restoring to a different kind of disk with a different file system.
* optionally change partition sizes when restoring.
* create an easy-to-use boot disk with the restore program on it.
* make the whole process easy and reliable, without needing specialized knowledge.
But that’s not a “disk image” as you were writing about in your first post. If I were in Jane’s shoes, a “disk image” is precisely what I’d want. And using the standard commands at the command line isn’t “specialized knowledge” if you’re running Linux.
The screen descriptions made me want to suggest you read Le Rouge et Le Noir. I then realized (ahem) I have not read it, either in French or English. I therefore intend to remedy that as practice. We shall knock the rust off my French and probably learn new vocabulary, with dictionary in hand too, but that’s fine. On l’achetera maintenant à l’ebook, si c’est possible.
Auto-incorrect wished to change that to “main tenant,” which gives quite another meaning, English or French. 😀 (Holding hands? Firmly? 😀 Sounds good!)
Sometimes computers are like those jugglers who spin plates on those long slender rods — ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpjj5JIIfwU ) like 15 at a time and they always have to be running up and down the line spinning one up as it winds down and ……ruuuun over here and quickly wind this one up then ruuuuun over here and spin this one up. And at some point, you get very tired, and plates get broken.
Yeah, gonna be doing a major reorg of my datacenter here this summer. I suppose not before time though. As a consequence I’ll finally decomission my 486 that I’ve used virtually every day since ’91! Still “does the job”. I’ll really miss the old beast, it got to be really beefy for its day! (EISA, 32MB RAM, 1GB SCSI drive)
A 486? Wow! What do you use it for, if you don’t mind my asking?
I have to keep my software up to date, to keep up with my clients, and that means I have to upgrade computer components fairly often. Fortunately, upgrading components means that I don’t have to upgrade the entire system all that frequently.
@Kafryn – Just standalone Office/Excel apps, e.g. daily weight, diet, and stock market, weekly IRA monitoring for the most part. It could have been moved before, but it warn’t broken. The only thing that really suggests it’s time to go is it’s on its second Dallas Semi clock/battery chip/module and those things are awfully hard to find anymore. It ain’t going far, to a dedicated “Super Socket 7” box with an AMD K6-2/333 CPU that was just sittin’ around. 😉
You are much more knowledgeable about computers (both HW and SW) than I am! After spending a lot of time dealing with my computers on my own and with help from friends and family, I decided to hire a systems administrator about 6 years ago.
He comes over once a month for regular maintenance, and as needed for component or system upgrades. Best of all, he is an excellent teacher, and has cheerfully educated me on some basics. He was very glad at the start to discover that I am conscientious about making backups (obsessed with backups?).
Two large-capacity external HDs (one connected to the computer and one in a safe deposit box – I switch them every few weeks, depending on the volume of work) and two smaller capacity portable HDs that I use for travel. I use ShadowProtect, Carbonite, and Robocopy for backups/mirror images.
The main computer also backs up data onto the HD of my secondary desktop computer. The main computer acts like a server, so my secondary (and tertiary) desktops and my laptop are linked to it. Despite Dell’s warnings, the main computer is set up for RAID 5. Two HDs have failed over the course of 10.5 years, and but the RAID 5 meant that I never lost data (and didn’t lose a lot of work time, either).
@Kafryn – I kinda hope so. 🙂 I started programming in ’66, built my own personal computer in ’76 from a kit and soldering pencil, began building my own Linux systems “from Scratch” in ’04, and had a career in mainframe computing. Shoulda learned something over the years. 😉 🙂
I still have a 486 machine. It’s running (when I get it out of its box) DR-DOS 8. The clock battery died a long time ago, so I just reset the clock and calendar each time I boot it. Besides which, it’s the machine with the 5 and 3-inch drives.
DOS: the nearly-unbreakable system!
Yep, I wrote decomission, not destroy, and meant it. I don’t trash books, nor (runnable) computers. Still have my original IMSAI, q.v. “Wargames”. 😉
Rain! Blessed rain. 🙂
Hooray for rain! We got the tag end of a tropical storm moving up the island chain over the weekend. Oahu really got pasted; there were reports of valleys on the windward side going from a trickle in the stream to 5′ deep in a matter of minutes, and oops! there goes my car! We visited friends at about the 1200′ level on Haleakala Saturday night, and around 10:00 the rain came pouring. We said our goodbyes and headed downhill; at the 500′ level over the space of a hundred feet the rain cut off from downpour to belligerent mist. We must have passed out of a layer of clouds.
OTOH, BOO! for HP. I’m sorry that whatever they did to your computer did not fix the problem, but instead gave you a host of new ones. I’d send it back with a poison pen letter. They had an epic fail at repairing it the first time.
My 2¢: I had a computer with an AMD graphics card that would only run properly with a driver created months before the computer was built. Now, I stick with nVidia.
Aagh, Walt. I’m nVidia, too.
Great news about the rain; miserable news about the computer. I just did a computer replacement and went with HP. The laptop is really nice, but I haven’t completed the transition to the new desktop. [Side note: My work requires both laptop and desktop; my exchequer would prefer otherwise.]
My spouse’s HP tablet had some problems, and HP fixed it without complaint.
OTOH, a friend of ours, who is quite computer-savvy, had an HP laptop with a faulty screen. He was pretty sure of the source of the problem (the most costly part to replace), and told HP so. Just as a precaution, he carefully removed the likely faulty part, wrote his initials and the date on the bottom, then replaced the part, and sent the laptop back to HP for repairs.
When the repaired laptop was returned to him, the screen still didn’t work well. The repair notes stated that the faulty part had been replaced. He checked, and lo! the part still had his initials and the date.
When he called HP and reported his findings, they were more than a little embarrassed and apologetic. They sent him a new laptop that was several notches better than what he’d started with.
He was always courteous when he communicated with HP, which likely helped (and might have terrified the person who took the call after the “repaired” computer didn’t work).
I hope that HP comes through for Jane!
Speaking of “courteous” computer vendors, the guys with heavy Indian accents from “Microsoft Technical Support” have been calling again, offering to fix my computer if I’d just turn it on and let them run it remotely. (Ummm, does my Penguin-based avatar give you a clue about my preferred OS? 😉 I’ve been retired for years and can’t afford to buy HW/SW every few years to keep Bill & Steve billionaires.)
I’ll be dead and gone before Microsoft really starts calling people (speculatively) offering free Tech Support! Friends don’t let friends fall for it.
Only too true, on all points, Paul!
Microsoft does have tech support in Pune, India. MS Update had crippled my computer (XP), and their solution was to uninstall every version of IE back to the one that came with XP (SP0, IIRC). I’m baffled how they can write software that convoluted, let alone why they do so! Due to a game, I actually know where Pune is, which pleased the tech.
Then I got Win7 with the note (from MS!) that I should not install any desktop widgets, including MS’s, because they were a security risk. I think I would have to try very hard to write code that bad. And MS wonders why everyone isn’t overjoyed when they want to foist a new version on us.
If I were MS, I’d be terrified by Steam’s decision to go Linux, but I would bet they’re oblivious. I’ll probably join you running Linux eventually, Paul.
@Walt – It isn’t the fact they’re Indian, though one had an accent I couldn’t cut through. IIT is one of the world’s top tech universities. 😉
No, it’s 1) the blatant attempt to take over my computer, 2) the presumption I use current Windows, 3) I’d assume free tech support from M$ was legit. “Stee-rike Three! Yer out.”